“The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it: though I’ll do my best. But you’re right. We must rescue ourselves as best we can.”

“The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it: though I'll do my best.”

“Vitally, the human race is dying. It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air. We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”

“When I want to move, I remember death, how it is ultimate and inevitable, and pure. Then I am free to move properly in life. It's like a man who wants to think, going and standing in front of a window. The space purifys ones' soul. And death is a window to me, with the darkness outside. And when I stand there, looking out, then the world and its active life seems only like a roomful of racket and light behind me, where I am taking part for a time, but not staying for long. It does not contain me and confine me. When I stand peacefully looking out on death, what is true in my soul disengages itself and is free and clear and untrammeled, I know what to do, I am sure, and free, and glad. Then I can turn into the world again"..."When one stands in front of the darkness, and knows that one's own life will pass away there also, into the darkness...then, in the peace that accompanies this knowledge, one can declare simply that the existing world of man is base and wrong, and must go, we know that our lives contain the inception of a new earth.."..."Remembering death, I know the life of the world as it is now is not living, it is a bad process of dying. And what we must live for is a new world of life. It doesn't matter when we die, so long as we live fulfilling the deepest desire that is in us. And a life which is a denial of the deepest desire is much worse than any death, it is a sheer lie.""If one accepts death and knows that nothing can take us away from that, one has the freedom and strength to live in truth, putting down the lies that pretend they own our living. But one must have the pure knowledge of death behind one, before one has really faith to tackle life and falsity. Being sure in death I am strong in life. And so, in life, and in all the world of man, I have no master, save the deepest desire of my own soul, in which death and life are one.”

“You know," he said to his mother, "I don't want to belong to the well-to-do middle class. I like my common people best. I belong to the common people." - Sons and Lovers”

“A woman cannot bear to feel empty and purposeless. But a man may take real pleasure in that feeling. A man can take real pride and satisfaction in pure negation: 'I am quite empty of feeling. I don't care the slightest bit in the world for anybody or anything except myself. But I do care for myself, and I'm going to survive in spite of them all, and I'm going to have my own success without caring the least in the world how I get it. Because I'm cleverer than they are, I'm cunninger than they are, even if I'm weak. I must build myself up proper protections, and entrench myself, and then I'm safe. I can sit inside my glass tower and feel nothing and be touched by nothing, and yet exert my power, my will, through the glass walls of my ego'.That, roughly, is the condition of a man who accepts the condition of true egoism, and emptiness, in himself. He has a certain pride in the condition, since in pure emptiness of real feeling he can still carry out his ambition, his will to egoistic success.Now I doubt if a woman can feel like this. The most egoistic woman is always in a tangle of hate, if not of love. But the true male egoist neither hates nor loves. He is quite empty, at the middle of him. Only on the surface he has feelings: and these he is always trying to get away from. Inwardly, he feels nothing. And when he feels nothing, he exults in his ego and knows he is safe. Safe, within his fortifications, inside his glass tower.But I doubt if women can even understand this condition in a man. They mistake emptiness for depth. They think the false calm of the egoist who really feels nothing is strength. And they imagine that all the defenses which the confirmed egoist throws up, the glass tower of imperviousness, are screens to a real man, a positive being. And they throw themselves madly on the defences, to tear them down and come at the real man, little knowing that there is no real man, the defences are only there to protect a hollow emptiness, an egoism, not a human man.”

“I am quite empty of feeling. I don't care the slightest bit in the world for anybody or anything except myself. But I do care for myself, and I'm going to survive in spite of them all, and I'm going to have my own success without caring the least in the world how I get it. Because I'm cleverer than they are, I'm cunninger than they are, even if I'm weak. I must build myself up proper protections, and entrench myself, and then I'm safe. I can sit inside my glass tower and feel nothing and be touched by nothing, and yet exert my power, my will, through the glass walls of my ego.”